The 2026 African Union Summit is being held this weekend in Addis Ababa, with Angola handing the rotating chair to Burundi. The bloc is facing challenges including mounting conflicts, insecurity in the Sahel, strained ties with Washington and internal strife, while this year’s summit theme of water highlights the damage done by devastating floods across the continent, and the urgency of tackling the effects of the climate crisis.
African heads of state and government will convene in the Ethiopian capital on 14 and 15 February, following the 39th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union (AU), held from 11 February.
Burundi is set to assume the rotating presidency, with President, Évariste Ndayishimiye to be named the AU chairman for 2026.
The issue of water as a vital resource is the official theme of this year’s summit. Addressing the executive council meeting this week, chairperson of the AU Commission Mahmoud Ali Youssouf emphasised its critical importance.
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“In the face of observed climate disruptions, the prudent use of water in all aspects of daily life is a major imperative. This vital resource must be perceived as a collective good, to be preserved at all costs, and as a vector for bringing our states closer together and for peace.”
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‘Heightened global uncertainty’
With contested elections, repression of dissent and prolonged states of emergency seen across the continent, conflict and security are expected to top the agenda.
“The Summit comes against a backdrop of intensifying global fragmentation, shrinking multilateralism, escalating conflicts, deepening debt distress, and growing climate stress,” Desire Assogbavi, an international development strategist and advocacy advisor for Africa at the Open Society Foundations wrote on his blog ahead of the summit.
This week, Youssouf met with United Nations secretary-general António Guterres at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa to discuss strengthening multilateralism at a time of war he called “heightened global uncertainty”.
Youssouf also expressed concern over “political instability, security crises, and unconstitutional changes of government, noting progress in Gabon and Guinea but setbacks in Madagascar and Guinea-Bissau, while underscoring the persistent terrorist threats in the Sahel and Horn of Africa, according to a statement following the meting.
“While there has been regression and progress is minimal, our mediators are active,” he said.
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Internal weaknesses
However, Clionadh Raleigh, director of the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data organisation and a professor of African politics and conflict at the University of Sussex, cast doubt on the AU’s ability to tackle these crises.
“It’s totally incompetent. Totally. It has a singular job to represent a coalition of African states. It can’t do that internally,” she told RFI. “And It certainly can’t do that externally.”
She said the organisations; internal processes are “factionalised and bureaucratic and just generally incompetent” and added: “And people are able to see this [from the] outside.”
“If you’re an organisation, a business, or a government, such as the Trump administration, you’re going to try to make sure that you benefit from [that factionalisation] or those vulnerabilities within the system.”
‘A defining test’
In addition to the ongoing conflicts in Sudan, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the Sahel and Libya, others have reemerged in South Sudan and Ethiopia, exposing the limits of security solutions.
AU Commission spokesman Nuur Mohamud Sheekh told reporters: “The AU has helped de-escalate political tensions and support dialogue before situations descend into violence,” citing the work done to prevent war between Sudan and South Sudan over the flashpoint region of Abyei.
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However, a recent report by the International Crisis Group (ICG) notes the AU’s limited scope to act, saying: “At a time when the AU is needed the most, it is arguably at its weakest since it was inaugurated.”
KinkohHubert of UK think tank Chatham House said this weekend’s summit was “an opportunity for decisive AU leadership on Sudan”, which he called a defining test for the AU.
Writing on the Chatham House site, he said: “The 2026 AU summit presents a narrow but critical window to reset the continental response. Without decisive action, Sudan risks irreversible fragmentation: de facto regional administrations could consolidate, national institutions could collapse entirely, and cross-border spillovers could intensify.”